


What It Seems

by DashingApostate



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M, Misunderstandings, One-sided pining, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 23:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4541304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DashingApostate/pseuds/DashingApostate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Anders is surprised to find that he does not, in fact, have all the answers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This just sort of started out as a small conversation between them in my head and grew into a little story.

\- - -

 

It was not as though it had been unexpected.

They had been dancing around each other for months ( _Years,_  probably. Not that Anders had wanted to see it, acknowledge the possibility that they...)

The doors to his clinic slid clamorously closed behind him, and he winced at the force with which he had slammed them shut, his fingers moving stiffly over the locks.

He turned to face his empty home.

One remaining healing potion; set among at least a dozen empty after the day's work. No more lyrium left. _Need to replenish those before tomorrow._

A lone cot sat upturned after a frail elven woman had thrown herself bodily from it, heaving the contents of her stomach onto the floor. _Mild fever. Elfroot, spindleweed, quarter cup healing potion; best to check in on in no less than a week._

Not two yards from there were the remnants of a cotton sheet, shredded and bloodied by a severely injured human man fresh out of the Bone Pit. _Shattered hip, separated knee-cap, intense blood loss; took two bottles of lyrium, but his body healed quite nicely._

Anders' eyes moved over every surface of the Darktown clinic, seeing face after face; every illness, injury, and ailment thrust upon him nonstop from the moment he had awoken to a pounding at his doors at first light, until the sun had long since disappeared from the sky, finding him escorting a limping patient back to her place of employment in Hightown.

Hightown, where he had seen...

His gaze settled on his desk and the paper scattered there as a sharp thought served to remind him of what tasks still lay ahead of him for the night.

Still work to be done, still those in need of his help.

This was his life. All that it would ever be...

_**Our life has purpose.**_

Anders' brow knit as he made his way to his desk.

_I know._

_**We will see that those in need of justice are served, taken care of. We will see to it that mages are freed, that those responsible –**_

_I know, Justice, I know. That is not..._

Anders didn't need to hear this, he already knew. He needed...he needed...

_A broad hand reached out to catch his arm before he set his foot over a trap, Hawke's booming laughter at his back as he pulled Anders close with an amused warning about watching where he stepped. That light, dizzying furl low in his stomach as the rogue's fingers brushed his wrist.._

_**Distraction.**_

_Stop, Justice, not now, not after..._

Anders' eyes screwed closed, his hands falling down over the loose pages of his manifesto, fingers closing into a fist over the smooth material.

_The Amell estate door sliding closed, a shock of white hair disappearing behind the familiar figure of Garrett Hawke, a hand outstretched, reaching for –_

_**It is for the best.**_

Anders willed the memory away, attempting to shake the image from his mind, but Justice pulled it back with sharp, raw clarity.

Fenris and Hawke.

 _**For the best.** _ The spirit's feeling, voice, being – seem to almost chant, over and over: _**For the best, for the best, for the best.**_

More unwanted images finding their way into his mind: Hawke leading Fenris to his bedroom, clumsy hands removing armor and clothing, soft sighs and faint laughs as they lean in to kiss -

Anders in Fenris' place. Hawke looking at him like...like he was...

The image was ripped from his mind, and he felt both his own desire and sorrow mix with Justice's disapproving fury. It was overwhelming.

_Stop! Justice, please...I can't...please..._

_**DISTRACTION.** _

“ _STOP!_ ” Anders shouted aloud, pleaded, hand lifting to curl his fingers over his tightly shut eyes.

“Mage.”

Anders started violently, one hand reaching to swing his staff forward from where it still remained at his back while he raised his other hand with heat pooling at his finger tips in the cusp of a ball of flame –

Fenris stood tensely at the Clinic's doors, lyrium brands pulsing faintly, darkened eyes reflecting the fire Anders was prepared to hurl forth.

Realizing himself, Anders quickly closed a fist over the energy in his palm, hissing softly as he pushed back from the Fade rather than pulled; a jolt not unlike a bolt of sparks shot up and down his arm to keep it within himself.

Letting his staff slip from his fingers and prop clumsily against his desk, Anders pulled a deep breath. “Are you mad?! What are you playing at, coming in here –“ He paused, eyes snapping between the door and the elf. “How did you even...” Anders stopped short, answering his own question before he could finish voicing it, glancing over the still-pulsing lines of lyrium capable of phasing through solid objects. He felt the lines of his face tighten around his scowl, furious at the other man's nerve. “My doors are locked. You have no right to be in here.”

_How long had he stood there?_

“I knocked,” Fenris replied ungraciously, shoulders loosening as the threat of fireballs seem to have passed.

_For now, that is._

Anders noted that the warrior still seemed on edge; knees slightly bent, hands tense, poised and ready for a fight.

“How polite of you to have knocked,” Anders said caustically. “Next time, when no one answers; bloody well take the hint and _sod off.”_

When Fenris offered no response, Anders quickly turned to show the warrior his back as he pretended to busy himself with organizing the pages he had scattered, as if Fenris' presence had not rattled him in the slightest.

Yet the way the tips of his fingers shook told a different story.

“Aren't you needed elsewhere?” Anders surprised himself by asking, unable to keep his tongue in check as the silence stretched unbearably.

“No.”

Anders' fingers threatened to tighten over the pages once more.

He was no fool. Fenris had made it no secret over the past months how he felt about Anders' obvious interest in Hawke. Every instance the rogue had turned his freely given flirtations Anders' way and he had responded in kind; the warrior never failed to fix him with burning, dark looks.

In fact, Fenris' glares and snarls almost seemed to have increased as of late, going beyond the elf's hatred of mages into something far more _personal._

Had he seen Anders in Hightown? Followed him straight back to Darktown, shadowing him?

Was he here to warn him off? Kill him?

_Gloat?_

Some form of fury rolled through Anders at the thought. “Why are you here?” He burst out, shoving himself away from his desk with enough force to displace it on the clinic floor, turning back around to face the other man.

Fenris was silent for a moment, eyes intense in a way Anders struggled to find meaning: Scorn? Caution?

“What you saw...” The warrior said slowly, voice as unreadable as his expression. “It is not – “

“Not what?” Anders found himself nearly sneering. “'Not what it looks like?'”

Fenris' jaw tightened in irritation.

“Look, unlike you, I don't make it a point to hound Hawke over his sex life,” Anders snapped. “It's no business of mine who either of you fuck.”

“Do not speak of things of which you have no understanding.” Fenris said with clear warning in his deep voice.

“'No understanding of'?” Anders repeated incredulously, incensed.

Why did he have to come here, _now?_

_Why was he doing this?_

“You think I don't see the way that he looks at you? How he feels about you?” Anders demanded impetuously, his body humming with tension, everything at once feeling too raw and exposed.

“You think I don't know that he's so bloody _in love with you?_ Do you honestly think that I don't know that?"

"Mage," Fenris growled impatiently, attempting to cut him off.

Anders was having none of it.

"Yes, _mage._ " Anders fired off without pause. " _Abomination,_ right? Thank you so much for reminding me of what I am!” He threw his hands up, taking another step closer without sparing a thought to his raising voice. The warrior stood his ground, offering no reaction to the __dangerous__ , raving _mage_ before him.

“As if I wasn't perfectly aware of what I am!” Anders continued harshly, unable to keep it in: his frustration, his anger, his grief, rising and bursting to the surface. And for once, it had nothing to do with Justice's presence pushing through uncontrolled. “As if the Chantry, the Templars, my own blighted _father_ hadn't made damn well sure I'd never forget exactly  _what I am._ What I'm _worth_ to people like them, to people like _you._ To people like – Hawke." He broke off as the words faltered over the rogue's name, coming out hoarse and fractured.

The edges of his vision blurred, but he blinked and glared passed it, his hands reaching out before he could stop himself to grip Fenris' broad shoulders tightly, rough spikes digging into his palms.

"But not you, right? No, not you. You're no ' _mage'._ " He spat the word with mocking vitriol, a poor rendition of the elf's hateful drawl and felt a short, humorless laugh somehow escape his mouth, leaving his throat raw and too thick.

His pulse raged under his skin, and he knew somewhere in the back of his mind that the man before him could kill him without flinching faster than he could blink, but that thought only served to tighten his grip. Justice was silent, as he always was when Anders was physically close to Fenris. It was making him reckless, the lyrium song drowning the spirit's higher reason within them.

But Fenris did not activate his markings, did not rip the heart from his chest, so Anders found himself helpless to stop his pathetic confession.

"You're not...Not some apostate only serving to remind him of a life spent running. Of the family he's lost...”

Anders trailed off as the heat in him simmered into something cold in his gut, painful; tightening his hands still harder to keep his fingers from trembling. “You're a free man now, Fenris." His shouting tone lowered to a reticent murmur; and his voice held no irony, no mocking implications.

Because it was the truth, wasn't it? Fenris had been a slave. But now? Now, he was exactly what Anders had no hope of ever becoming.

Fenris stood stiffly before him, and Anders could almost hear his own pulse hammer in his throat as he leaned in closer to the other man, meeting those unfairly gorgeous green eyes that Hawke would no doubt lose himself in...

"You're free.” Anders repeated, voice threatening to shake if raised above a low whisper. “Free to live any life you so choose, free to give Hawke exactly what you both want.”

And who was Anders to keep that from Hawke?

He wouldn't. Anders would see him happy, and he knew, with everything that he was; Hawke could never be happy with someone like _him._

Maker did this _hurt._

“Do you think I'm not perfectly –  _painfully_ – aware that you are everything to him that I can _never be?”_ He felt his vision blurring once again, but he didn't bother blinking past it, didn't bother removing his hands from the other man's shoulders to scrub the unshed tears away. What did his pride matter now, anyway?

Hawke would never be his. And Fenris would always be there at his side, hating everything that Anders was, never letting him forget that he was nothing more than a  _monster._

“ _You think I don't know that?_ ” Anders demanded again with a dangerous tremor, no more expecting an answer to this question than any of the others.

Fenris was finally moving, finally reacting; and Anders almost felt relieved as the other man lifted a hand. He braced himself, closing his eyes as he loosened his vice like grip to let his arms fall numbly at his sides. Waiting for the blow to land.

Perhaps a good punch to the jaw was just what he needed right now, shouting like a mad man? There was brief flare from Justice in the back of his mind at the humorless joke, but it was so faint now...fainter still as he felt the lyrium draw closer...

When a light tracing of cold metal met the skin of his face, he flinched, his eyes falling open as the feathery touch pulled an aborted shudder past his lips.

Fenris rested his splayed fingers over Anders' cheek, the warm pad of his thumb reaching out to carefully catch the lone tear that trailed from the corner of his right eye.

Anders felt the breath leave his lungs too quickly, his mind feeling thick and dazed as it attempted to make sense of the soft touch, the unguarded look in those green eyes...

“You know _nothing,_ mage.” Fenris' breath tickled warm over his cheek, contrasting with the cold bite of his gauntlets. He leaned in before Anders could respond, before he could properly process the other man's words; his mind going completely blank as Fenris' lips brushed his own.

Anders mouth remained slack in his shock as the warrior pressed closer, reaching a strong arm around his waist to catch sharp gauntlets over the fabric of his robes.

Fenris was kissing him _. Fenris was kissing him._

And he was...careful, _gentle_ even. His mouth pressing over Anders' pliant lips slowly, drawing out each motion as if to savor each touch...

It was too much. Too soft when it should be rough, painful, _hateful._

And Anders felt himself begin to react, lips parting and pressing back the slightest bit -

He jerked frantically away, breaking the contact of their mouths and fighting his way out of the elf's hold. Fenris let him go without struggle, face ever unreadable as Anders took two wide, unsteady steps backward, momentarily losing his footing and righting himself on the edge of his desk as he slammed back into it.

He felt a faint whisper of sorrowful regret from Justice as the lyrium song faded.

“What – What in...” Anders mumbled incoherently, eyes suddenly only able to focus everywhere but the warrior. “Y-You just...”

A stretch of stark silence settled over them, and Anders swallowed thickly, the tip of his tongue sliding out over his lower lip as he tried unsuccessfully to find the words – _any bloody words_ – the faintest taste of red wine registering.

“You were...” Fenris rumbled, voice somehow startling Anders despite its low tone, as though the other man had raised it in a shout. He sounded somewhere between impatient and uncertain, his feet shifting his weight, his legs tensed.

Anders found himself finally lifting his eyes and focusing on the other man's face. _Needing_ to find some sense, some answer. Yet Fenris was now the one avoiding eye contact, the brown skin of his cheeks almost appearing flushed red.

“I was – _what?_ ” Anders demanded, nearly wincing at how rattled he sounded, his voice once again coming out with that small tremor.

Fenris' eyes slid from the floor to Anders' boots before finally moving them up to meet his gaze.

Anders willed himself not to look away.

“Crying.”

Anders stared. His mouth unwilling to form words, a response so far out of reach as the meaning of Fenris' statement seemed to escape anything even resembling sense. 

Fenris gave him no more time, backing away without further explanation. Still reeling, Anders nearly missed the gruff mumble of, "Mistake...Should not have come here..."   
  
Anders continued staring like a fool, helpless to his own stupefaction as the warrior lit his brands and made for the doors.

Before he slid through the solid wood and shanty framework, Fenris fixed him with a burning look; fury and regret, and...pain?

Anders felt his chest grow oddly tight at the sight, stunned to see such naked emotion on this man's face. 

"I apologize, mage." Fenris murmured, one corporeal hand already reaching beyond the door. "I will not...not touch you again."

With that, the warrior was gone; leaving Anders alone in the suddenly too-dark clinic. A hand lifting to press fingers over his lips.


	2. Chapter 2

The muggy stench of Darktown settled over Fenris like a familiar, unrelenting cloud as he took to the stairs outside Anders' clinic in wide, two-at-a-time steps that nearly missed their mark more than once. When he reached the landing between stairways, he slowed, turning to slip out of sight and brace himself with his palms flattened against the rough surface of a slightly damp wall.

He could hear the far off ambiance of the Darktown dwellers; a varying of soft murmurs and carrying bellows, the snaps of the fires they would crowd themselves around in the chill of the evening, and the ever present coughing and retching that came with breathing the inhospitable air of filth, refuse, and mold spores.

Fenris curled his hands into fists and moved to press his forehead against the cool surface of the wall as well, his blood running hot in his veins and his jaw clenched as he fought back any audible groaning or growling; breathing slowly out his nose in an attempt to calm himself after he had –

 _Kissed the mage._ Kissed _him._

A fresh wave of cold, biting mortification shot through him and dropped like a stone deep in his gut at the realization that that had _truly just happened._

Fenris pushed himself roughly off the wall, moving away from the mage's clinic and taking the familiar turns that led him up the steps directing out of Darktown at a deceptively even pace – as if distancing himself from Anders might erase his slip, his _mistake._

Despite the dangers that plagued Kirkwall's districts after dark, Fenris' lone journey through the city's streets went undisturbed. Likely it was due to the menacing way that he carried himself in his frustrations; gauntlets fisted at his sides, markings faintly pulsing dangerously, and a dark look that promised carnage to anyone foolish enough to test his current lack of patience.

That had not gone as Fenris had expected.

Granted, he had no clear plan of action in place when he had followed Anders from Hightown after the mage had seen him entering Hawke's estate so late at night. Fenris had seen that stricken look on the blonde's face, had watched numbly as Anders hurried away with any manner of false conclusions and had felt compelled to...

Well he did not know _what_ exactly – but _that_ had certainly not been it.

Fenris had no idea how to react when he had finally caught up to the mage, only to have Anders begin shouting and accusing; pouring his bleeding heart out before Fenris and saying things that he could still feel twisting and clawing at some place in his chest.

Being faced with Anders' unguarded emotions, his honest sorrow – his _pain._

“ _What I'm_ worth _to people like them, to people like_ you _ _–“__

To be the _cause_ of it.

To then have acted on his incredibly foolish, confusing impulse to offer - what? _Comfort?_

 _Why_  did he not just opened his damn mouth and correct the mage's claims? _Why_ did he think it was in any way okay to pull the fool into his arms? To touch him at all?

 _Kaffas_ – this was clearly getting out of hand. His absurd actions that night had obviously proved as much.

Weeks before, when Anders had nearly let his demon slaughter an innocent, Fenris had planned to confront the abomination about his inability to stay in control and the danger that he posed to Hawke and those around him.

Only to find that Hawke had beaten him to it. Fenris had watched, silent and furious, at the clinic's doors as Hawke persuaded a packing Anders, intent on leaving the city, that he was needed in Kirkwall. That he was not the monster he had convinced himself he was.

Fenris had been no where near convinced.

If Hawke could not see the abomination for what he was – then Fenris would see to it that he be stopped the moment he succumbed to his inevitable corruption. He began watching him closely during their outings with Hawke, during their weekly meetings at the Hanged Man. And eventually, when he had one too many pulls of wine, going so far as to occasionally make the trek down into Darktown and survey him as he healed.

It was not long before Fenris began to think of Anders even when he was not watching him – and it was _maddening._

Occasionally became frequently; and soon enough, Fenris had found himself spending hours standing not far from where the healer worked; watching, listening, _wondering..._

Fenris was no longer sure when it was that his guarded curiosity had morphed into something else entirely.

In truth, he was not unaware that he had made a conscious effort not to examine these changing thoughts, these unfamiliar...feelings too closely when he would task himself with watching the mage.

Now though, upon reflection, it would seem that perhaps that had been his mistake.

Had he stopped himself from wandering too close. From taking too long a look. From seeing not just an abomination to be guarded against, to be brought down at the first signs of corruption; but finding instead – to his surprise and immense confusion – something else entirely.

Seeing the... _kindness_ that the mage seemed to endlessly exude, that Fenris had always written off as a front for an arrogant man playing the part of martyr to justify his place outside the Circle, to prove that his magic was somehow not a threat. (His magic. Wrong, off, _pleasant._ Bright and warm like sun rays on frozen skin. Easing and igniting against his markings in a way he both hated and craved beyond reason...)

But, no matter _how_ Fenris attempted to approach it, _how_ he tried to find some hidden angle to what he was witnessing – he just...could not find any of that arrogance in what Anders gave to others.

Often the man gave more than he truly had to offer, forsaking himself to ensure every last patient was healed, fed, safe; thoroughly taken care of in a way he entirely denied _himself._ He did not expect payment. He did not even _accept_ it.

This mage could go head to head with some of Tevinter's most powerful Magisters using the power of his Fade spirit, could use that overwhelming advantage to gain wealth, status, and property.

Instead, Anders had not one of those things. He used his magic to heal the poor in the sewers of the most mage-hostile city-state in all of the Free Marches, and in the process, put himself in increasing danger of drawing the attention of Templars.

In time Fenris realized just how far his fixation with this foolish, blathering, and infuriatingly compelling mage had become. With his careless use of magic, as flagrant as his snarky mouth. His completely dangerous and naive goal to personally let loose as many mages from the Gallows that he possibly could, no matter the cost.

His disregard for his own health; shown by the slender lines of his body under the bulk of his robes, the exhaustion that bordered and darkened the bottom of those expressive, warm brown eyes –

The lyrium throbbing in his skin burned bright in the darkened Hightown streets for a moment, and Fenris closed his eyes to force a calm over the fire in his veins, the denial that had long sense rang hollow in the back of his mind...

That he was no longer merely watching a dangerous, possessed mage – he was actually _guarding_ one – a realization that had led to many bottles of wine both smashed and consumed before he could come to terms with just what it all might mean.

That he cared for Anders.

 _Cared_ for him. An _abomination._

That he was – willingly, as a _free man_ – acting once again as bodyguard to a mage.

Fenris had intended to return home to his mansion and a bottle of wine (a _few_ bottles, rather), and he could not say why exactly his feet instead traced the well-known route that led him to the door of a different Hightown manor. Now as he stood before it for the second time that night, he had to wonder if he had made a mistake in returning.

Before he could decide whether or not to retreat to the solitude of his own mansion after all, the opulent door swung open to reveal a familiar, winning smile and the man to which it belonged.

“Fenris,” Hawke greeted cheerfully as he moved aside to beckon him inside, now clothed in his maroon house tunic. “How'd it go with Anders?”

“Poorly.” Fenris finally said after a long moment of consideration, relenting to the other man's expectant gaze as he always did against his better judgment. Hawke closed the door behind them.

“That bad?” Hawke frowned. “What happened?”

Fenris let his friend lead him into the estate's library, and to the table that Hawke had long ago designated for Fenris' reading lessons, unsure of how to explain what had happened. Hawke settled in at his usual spot at the head of the table, waiting for Fenris to gather his thoughts, distracting himself with scratching his mabari behind his ears in a way that made the hound thump its massive back paws and whine appreciatively.

“I take you argued, then?” Hawke ventured when Fenris had still offered nothing, watching the human and his dog with an easy silence.

Knowing that he had come here of his own volition, for the advice and thoughts of a man who he owed more than he was likely to repay, Fenris released a long breath before forcing himself to answer.

“Not...exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

Fenris hesitated long enough for Hawke to grow impatient once more.

“Oh come now, it can't have been _that_ terrible. No one's missing any limbs, are they? All vital organs in tact? No glowing?”

Fenris shook his head, avoiding the rogue's eyes as he said. “You were correct in assuming that he thought that you and I are...involved.”

Hawke nodded, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed behind his neck. His mabari lowered himself the ground, content to listen to them speak.

“Well, our reading lessons are often held at a rather suspicious hour. I have to say, I don't terribly mind having people believe I managed to pull such a handsome elf.” The rogue winked, smug smirk in place.

Fenris rolled his eyes, moving to sit stiffly in his own chair, shoulders hunched forward. “The mage was...noticeably distressed.”

“Oh?” Hawke had enough propriety to appear bit guilty at this, likely knowing just how deep Anders' feelings for him went. “Did you set it all straight, then?”

Fenris fidgeted, feeling his ears twitch in that aggravatingly telling way that elven ears sometimes did as he studied the spines of books in the bookcase behind Hawke's head, not bothering to attempt reading the letters he was not really seeing.

Fenris found it difficult to explain himself. He had come to find that his reactions and words would vary, that they were often emotion-driven in a way that still chaffed and confused. As a slave, his every decision and action had served purposes, thoughtless dictation drilled into him by the wants and needs of Danarius – never once did he do things that were a direct reaction to his own wishes, his own desires, even his own thoughts.

Now, he would lash out, he would allow the emotions that were too overwhelming rise to the forefront with an inability to process before acting. Explaining any of that, finding the words for why he had – had _kissed Anders_ – to even Hawke, was near impossible.

“You _did_ tell him, didn't you?” Hawke pressed.

“I...” Fenris trailed off with a frustrated growl, still unable to meet Hawke's eyes.

“Yes?”

“I – kissed him.”

Hawke's face evened out with a blank stare, before his eyes grew impossibly wide.

“You _what?”_

Fenris winced, cold dread eating at his nerves. He could feel Anders' hands shoving him off, see the blonde's expression once he had freed himself of Fenris' unwelcome grip; wild with confusion and just a bit of fear...

Fenis felt his stomach churn.

“Maker, you're serious, aren't you?” Hawke demanded, sounding somewhere between horrified and delighted.

“Unfortunately.”

“But this is brilliant!”

Fenris' brow creased in a scowl, eyes snapping up to fix Hawke with an incredulous look. “I fail to see how offering the mage unwanted contact from someone he hates is in any way _brilliant._ ”

Hawke snorted. “He doesn't _hate_ you, Fenris.”

Fenris recalled in sharp detail the anguish and resentment he had seen cast over the mage's handsome face the moment their eyes had met.

He suddenly wished very much that he had returned sooner to his empty mansion, and to his wine.

“What happened after you swept him off his feet, then?” Hawke asked, looking far too excited about the whole thing. “Anything else? Any clothes ripped off? Give a man some details!”

“Nothing more _happened,”_ Fenris said in an icy tone. “He did not wish for me to touch him. I left immediately.”

“Well,” Hawke offered after a loaded silence. “Look at this way – at least outright kissing him is better than that tired schoolyard act you've been at for the past few weeks.”

Fenris frowned, not understanding. “'Schoolyard act'?”

Hawke seemed to realize his confusion. He spread his hands out in front of him as he explained. “Well, you know – when children can't handle their affection for others, they can sometimes...lash out, a bit.”

Fenris' scowl deepened, Hawke's jibe hitting too close to home for the part of himself that was always embarrassed by his inexperience with common social practices. “You are suggesting that I am acting like a child.”

“Of course you are!” Hawke laughed. “Maker, Fenris – do you really have no idea? You cannot stop yourself from snarling at Anders any time he opens his mouth, until his back is turned – then suddenly you're all wide, puppy eyes.”

Fenris twitched. He had heard quite enough about the blighted _'puppy eyes'_ from Hawke since the rogue had come to realize just how far Fenris' preoccupation with Anders had become.

“Not to mention how you act when Isabela or I flirt with him. All that furious and brooding strength. I have to say – as doomed as it all is – you wear jealousy _rather well._ ”

Fenris twitched again, his expression darkening as he rose from his seat. “This is not a _game,_ Hawke.”

Hawke's wide grin fell, leaving him with only a small, almost sheepish smile that still somehow managed to remain just this side of teasing. “All right, all right. You know it's all in good fun. No one is going to steal your pretty apostate away.”

Fenris flushed, shaking his head as he resumed his seat with his arms crossed over his chest. "He is not _my –_ anything.” He growled, suddenly feeling too tired to deal with Hawke's inappropriate humor.

Anders was very clearly in love with Hawke. Fenris knew that, had known for some time. He had no foolish ideas about pursuing a man that hated him.

A _mage._ He reminded himself, as he had and would any time he found his mind wandering past sense to thoughts of how golden hair and softly pale, freckled skin might feel under his hands...

“Not _yet.”_ Hawke corrected with a suggestive rise to his dark brows, and Fenris could not stop his irritation from rising. Garrett Hawke rarely took anything seriously, and he was not helping in the least. At this point, he would have better luck speaking to even _Isabela –_ and there was no way in all the damn Void that was happening given what her obvious suggestions would be.

Fenris rose from his chair. “It is late. Unless you would have further use of me, I should return to my mansion.”

Hawke made no move to stop him, giving him only an overly drawn out sigh before rising with him and saying fondly, “You always have to do things with such difficulty, don't you? No matter,” Hawke reached a broad hand out to rest tentatively on Fenris' shoulder.

Fenris watched the movement, fighting the urge to shrug him off.

“All I can really say is – go _talk_ to him, Fenris. Tell him all the things you keep covering with your insults and distrust of magic.”

 _And say what?_ Fenris wanted to demand.

He did not know what he wanted from Anders. He did not even know what it _was to want._

Without another word, Fenris was striding from the library and past the estate's doors, the all too familiar sensation of fleeing, of running away, washing over him and stiffening his steps.

He felt Hawke's eyes on him until he knew the other man was well out of view.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp, it seems a tiny plot for this has developed.


End file.
